My wife...

My daughter and wife were singing a song from the day care last night as we walked home from having ice cream. The base of the song goes like this:

"Down by the bay- down by the bay- where the watermelons grow. Back to my home. I dare not go. For if I do, my mother will say..."

And then it goes into a chorus, which goes something like: "Did you ever see a bear, sitting on a chair?" See that rhyming in there? That's the important part. So it could be: "Did you ever see a monkey getting real funky?"; "Did you ever see a goat, driving a boat?" Whatever.

So my wife goes. She sings, "Did you ever see a moose, hanging from a noose?"

I have never laughed harder at her. Not that it was incredibly funny or anything. Just that this was MY WIFE singing a song to my not-quite-three-year-old-daughter, and SHE is so shocked by what she just sang her hands are covering her mouth, eyes bulging, trying to hold it in...

Gosh, I never knew she was so violent. And racist against antlered-mammals.

The 'House

Hobo Chili - My thoughts...

Along with Emily Barrett, I am in an Improv Duo known as Hobo Chili. (Brief history lesson.) Emily and I trained together at the Stevie Ray's School of Improv in Minneapolis. Upon "graduation," another student in the class asked if we wanted to do a non-sexual, performance threesome with him, that we originally called "Righty Tighty Lefty Lucy." I think that trio lasted a couple of weeks before the other student stopped returning our phone calls. Best of luck, Zach.

For all I know, he may have planned this all along, because once it came down to Emily and me we were determined to make it work, and immediately planned on doing something different, something that had not been seen before in Minneapolis Improv, particularly at Improv-A-Go-Go or Brave New Workshop in general. But, at the time, neither of us had any idea what that thing was.

With time running out, Emily entered us into the Improv-A-Go-Go blind lottery. We were accepted. Great! We now had six weeks to come up with a "structure" for this team name of Hobo Chili.

(Quick fun fact: the name Hobo Chili comes from a line in a joke by Dave Attell that for some reason stuck with me. "Get me an onion, a shoelace, and a Mr. Coffee and I'll make you some Hobo Chili." -Skanks For The Memories.)

We had played around with the idea of doing a debate structure, fielding questions from the audience, but didn't feel like that could hold it's own. Getting frustrated, I began to brainstorm what I knew about Hobos in the world of comedy, and something hit me: something I read once in my 20th Anniversary book of Saturday Night Live.

Dan Akyroyd was talking about a sketch he always wanted to do, which was him and Bill Murray standing around a burning trashcan, just BS-ing and remembering "the good old days." I had always thought that would make a great sketch... and then thought, "Screw that! That would make a great improv format!"

And that's where it came from. I know Emily and I both had our own goals going into it, but I think I can safely say that the three things we both wanted Hobo Chili to be were:

1.) A chance to do multiple characters without doing a typical "montage" format.

2.) An opportunity to add "Hats" to our stage show (we use a multitude of hats to play different characters.)

3.) Constant characters throughout that the audience can actually invest emotionally into. We play Hobos that flashback to "better" times in their lives, and throughout there is always one Hobo on stage (sometimes 2) that the audience I believe is legitimatelly rooting for. Why do I believe that? In the five shows we have done at A-Go-Go, we are the only group to get multiple "awwww"s from the crowd; both happy "awws" and concerned "awws."

I have decided to write this blog at this time for one genuine reason: last night's show- after having over 12 hours to look back on- may have been our best. It was short, fun, and simple: we drove home the unique relationship between the two hobos; we established history, location, attitudes, etc. in the first three minutes; and it was a blast. We didn't have huge set-ups for our "flashbacks." They were three simple flashbacks:

-Woolhouse was trained by the city championship karate master after finishing 17th of 20 in a competition.

-Woolhouse was once declared legally dead for 3 hours.

-Emily once ate a buffalo whole.

Simple. Sophisticated. Relateable. And enough to make three great scenes out of. It may not have received the uproarious laughter we received while playing the twins in the womb that absorbed the other; nor did we receive the legitimate applause of joy and happiness after the Hobos reunited and got engaged following a carnival (literal) romance; nor did she hit me in the head with a club practicing for the seals later: it was constant and solid throughout. And I enjoyed every second of it.

If you read this, I implore you to check us out for the final show for three months or so. We will be back in November, but we have one more show, August 23rd at 8pm at the Brave New Workshop in Minneapolis. 8pm. $1. Come see a completely different and unique improv experience to what you will normally receive. As one fellow improviser put it following a performance: "[Hobo Chili] doesn't go for simple jokes and laughs every few seconds; you two take the audience on a ride, grab them emotionally, and when the laughs come, they're loud and mean something. You have a great build to your scenes, and it's different from every other group that performs here."

I'll take that compliment any day of the freakin' week.

Woolhouse

PS: Emily, I'm afraid I may not have echoed the statement appropriately last night, so here it is: I, too, trust you 100% when we're onstage. Even when you're about to hit me square in the head with a solid wooden cane.